Shang Dynasty (1600-1046 BC) PDF

The Shang Dynasty (1600 – 1046 BC) 商 Religion The religion was polytheistic and was practiced by all social classes. The oracle bone inscriptions, Jiaguwen (甲骨文) are essential for our understanding of Shang religion. An integral part of the Shang religion was the ancestor worship that became lat...

The Shang Dynasty (1600 – 1046 BC) 商 Religion The religion was polytheistic and was practiced by all social classes. The oracle bone inscriptions, Jiaguwen (甲骨文) are essential for our understanding of Shang religion. An integral part of the Shang religion was the ancestor worship that became later the core of Confucianism and Chinese thinking. Religion Ministers, servants, slaves, concubines, were sacrified and buried together as human sacrifices – renxun ( 人殉) with their lord. Hence, the Shang believed in an afterlife. Mass horse burial for Duke Jing of Qi (reigned 547–490 BCE) of Shang dynasty Religion The highest god was Shangdi (上帝) who was especially responsible for natural powers like wind and rain. The highest deity was able to send down fortune and disaster (inundation, draught, sickness) on people below. Other natural gods like the Earth, the Yellow River, the god of Mount Song (嵩山) and the Sun. Deceased kings were deified as gods and received the title of di 帝 (like Di Xin 帝辛). Religion Shang thinking can not be divided from divination. The use of divination by pyromancy, exposing bones or turtle plastrons to the fire and divining by the resulting cracks in the bone's surface. To divine, a hole was drilled in the scapula of an ox or in the plastron (breast shield) of a turtle. Exposing the bone to fire, it obtained cracks out of which the professional diviner or the king as a divining shaman read what to do in the next future. The divination's course and the result was written down on the bones before storing and burying them in big jars. Oracle bone pit at Yinxu, Anyang  Jia Gu Wen(甲骨文) Oracle Bone Script The Oracle Bones (甲骨文) The Oracle Bone script is the first type of Chinese script recorded Art and Script The earliest form of written history: The Oracle Bones. Mostly concerned with divination and ancestor worship. Stress on ritual. Western Gods vs Chinese Ancestors (once living) The Shape of the Turtle The Huainanzi 淮南子 Relation to myth: a change in world order / cosmogony A time of perfect peace, when “people entrusted their infants to the safety of nests and placed their excess grains at the head of fields. Tigers and leopards could be pulled by the tail, vipers and snakes could be trod upon…” But then peace breaks and “When it came to the time of Yao, the Ten Suns came out together, withering the crops of grain and killing the grasses, so that the people had nothing to eat…” 黃 versus 玄 Shang vs Xia Shang art related to brightness, light, sun, life, fire. Obvious contrast to the Xia, which were believed to be dark, murky, water, death. -> A social evolution and distancing from the ‘dark ages’ of mythhistory. The Shang looked to the East as the origin of life, hence the character 東 – which is believed to be a sun on top of a tree (the ten-sun mulberry tree 桑) The Yellow Springs formed when Hou Yi shot down the raven-suns, and their feathers scattered and fell in the water. Yellow Springs keep in their midst the Mulberry tree, the cradle of light -> life.